This game does everything in its power to demotivate me to play it

[Goshin2568]

This doesn’t at all explain why, if it’s important for PD and Sony, online is such a mess in 7.

You reckon it’s just incompetence, then?

I get the longevity argument, but does a thin tail of players still doing online races years after most have moved on to other things really do much for PD or Sony? Even if they do make videos to entertain each other.

I'd say it's 50% just general incompetence by PD, and 50% them struggling to figure out how to make things work correctly between PS4 and PS5. I'm not an expert but I've seen a lot of people theorize with some pretty reasonable evidence that this is the cause or at least a large contributing factor in a lot of the online issues. And it would at least sort of make sense in that this is the first time PD have ever had to do anything multiplatform before, and that they didn't know that would be the case until relatively late in the development cycle.


But yeah as for things like "why are there no even slightly imaginative combos in sport mode races" that just plain inexcusable incompetence on the part of PD.


I might understand the "PD clearly just doesn't care about online" argument if they were instead heavily focused on improving single player, but seeing as they aren't making much progress there either, incompetence is the only thing that makes any sense to me.

 

[Nagaremono]

I'd say it's 50% just general incompetence by PD, and 50% them struggling to figure out how to make things work correctly between PS4 and PS5. I'm not an expert but I've seen a lot of people theorize with some pretty reasonable evidence that this is the cause or at least a large contributing factor in a lot of the online issues. And it would at least sort of make sense in that this is the first time PD have ever had to do anything multiplatform before, and that they didn't know that would be the case until relatively late in the development cycle.


But yeah as for things like "why are there no even slightly imaginative combos in sport mode races" that just plain inexcusable incompetence on the part of PD.


I might understand the "PD clearly just doesn't care about online" argument if they were instead heavily focused on improving single player, but seeing as they aren't making much progress there either, incompetence is the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Yeah, the PS4/5 thing is a plausible excuse for them, I suppose. I wonder if anyone at PD or Sony has commented on it? I doubt it, or it’d be mentioned a lot around here. Odd, because you’d think they’d want to explain...

The thing with single player is PD have the stats showing the vast majority of players do only that (ie. no online), and another subset of online players (like me) will only do enough races to trigger the trophies, then stop. I still struggle to see what’s really in it for PD and Sony, creating races for that small tail who really do like online. They get our money when we buy the game, thereafter we only pay for mtx and dlc, and perhaps a few pay for Plus just to access the online races, but I can’t really see how online players racing each other years after the game’s launch really does much for Sony’s bottom line. Surely they’d prefer we buy a new/different game...

I guess time will tell.

 

[NikNakTobasco]

GTS worked fine cross gen.

 

[Goshin2568]

Yeah, the PS4/5 thing is a plausible excuse for them, I suppose. I wonder if anyone at PD or Sony has commented on it? I doubt it, or it’d be mentioned a lot around here. Odd, because you’d think they’d want to explain...

The thing with single player is PD have the stats showing the vast majority of players do only that (ie. no online), and another subset of online players (like me) will only do enough races to trigger the trophies, then stop. I still struggle to see what’s really in it for PD and Sony, creating races for that small tail who really do like online. They get our money when we buy the game, thereafter we only pay for mtx and dlc, and perhaps a few pay for Plus just to access the online races, but I can’t really see how online players racing each other years after the game’s launch really does much for Sony’s bottom line. Surely they’d prefer we buy a new/different game...

I guess time will tell.

Because esports is absolutely fantastic marketing. At the end of the day it's sports, and people watch sports. Gran Turismo esports events and high level sport mode races get millions of views on youtube. After the first few months of the games life, once the initial marketing push is over, that's by far the easiest way to get new people to hear about your game and then potentially buy it.

Like I mentioned in a previous comment, all the GT content creators combined get like 8-figures of views per month playing gran turismo, even on GT sport prior to GT7 being released. That is an absolutely insane amount of exposure for a 4 year old game. And it's organic. But they would only do that in an esports environment. You couldn't get that by making videos about playing through the single player against **** AI for the 23rd time.

GTS worked fine cross gen.

That wasn't cross gen. GT sport never got a PS5 update, it ran on ps5 in backcompat mode, essentially just emulating a ps4.

 

[Nagaremono]

Because esports is absolutely fantastic marketing. At the end of the day it's sports, and people watch sports. Gran Turismo esports events and high level sport mode races get millions of views on youtube. After the first few months of the games life, once the initial marketing push is over, that's by far the easiest way to get new people to hear about your game and then potentially buy it.

Like I mentioned in a previous comment, all the GT content creators combined get like 8-figures of views per month playing gran turismo, even on GT sport prior to GT7 being released. That is an absolutely insane amount of exposure for a 4 year old game. But they would only do that in an esports environment. You couldn't get that by making videos about playing through the single player against **** AI for the 23rd time.

This 8-figure views on YouTube or whatever, though they may be ‘marketing’, do they really drive further sales to any great extent? Most of the viewers presumably already own the game, and we know the major percentage of sales of any game come in the months straight after launch. Again, I struggle to see what really makes it worthwhile for Sony. But anyway, even if the top level stuff does do something tangibly beneficial for them, I doubt the DR A,B,C classes do.

 

[NikNakTobasco]

This 8-figure views on YouTube or whatever, though they may be ‘marketing’, do they really drive further sales to any great extent? Most of the viewers presumably already own the game, and we know the major percentage of sales of any game come in the months straight after launch. Again, I struggle to see what really makes it worthwhile for Sony. But anyway, even if the top level stuff does do something tangibly beneficial for them, I doubt the DR A,B,C classes do.

I bought GTS and GT7 as a result of watching youtube streamers, I remember thinking what I would do if I was ever in a race with them! There’s definitely something aspirational about it. I’ve no idea if there‘s a lot of people that did the same as me but I imagine it‘s a fair few. The esports side of things also gives the game a certain prestige which I would hope Sony value to enough degree that seeing the esports guys now being quite negative toward the game will motivate them to fix it.

That wasn't cross gen. GT sport never got a PS5 update, it ran on ps5 in backcompat mode, essentially just emulating a ps4.

My mistake, I only started playing in December so I didn’t realise there wasn’t a PS5 update to it.

 

[Goshin2568]

This 8-figure views on YouTube or whatever, though they may be ‘marketing’, do they really drive further sales to any great extent? Most of the viewers presumably already own the game, and we know the major percentage of sales of any game come in the months straight after launch. Again, I struggle to see what really makes it worthwhile for Sony. But anyway, even if the top level stuff does do something tangibly beneficial for them, I doubt the DR A,B,C classes do.

Not in "significant numbers" compared to launch of the game, but that's literally the point. Once you're past the launch window of a game, how on earth do you get sales? All the reviews and media coverage have already happened, all your posters at game stores have been taken down, you aren't running commercials or anything anymore, and all your single player playthroughs by content creators on youtube are over. What else is there to drive sales? Hoping someone walks by the disk at the store and picks it up?


It doesn't take a lot of math to realize that there aren't anywhere near enough sport mode players to account for the views that these content creators are getting. They are absolutely getting watched heavily by people who aren't actively playing the game, and every time that happens that a potential sale. That's a potential person who can show that to their friend, etc. And again it's hard to get that kind of exposure from any other source once you're past that initial launch window.

Sure, it's not going to sell as much as releasing a new game, but there's a limit to how often you can do that. It makes much more sense to use esports to try and keep making sales on your current game and keeping it relevant and in people's minds while you start on the new one. It's not like it takes PD's entire staff working full time to run stuff, not even close.

I bought GTS and GT7 as a result of watching youtube streamers, I remember thinking what I would do if I was ever in a race with them! There’s definitely something aspirational about it. I’ve no idea if there‘s a lot of people that did the same as me but I imagine it‘s a fair few. The esports side of things also gives the game a certain prestige which I would hope Sony value to enough degree that seeing the esports guys now being quite negative toward the game will motivate them to fix it.

This is a great way to put it, and I think a ton of people shared that experience. I have sort of similar experience, I've been simracing since like 2008 (played older GT's casually on controller before that), but I took a break from it from like 2015-2018 because my life was crazy busy. But stumbling across GTS esports stuff on youtube is what motivated me to get back into it.

 

[Nagaremono]

I bought GTS and GT7 as a result of watching youtube streamers, I remember thinking what I would do if I was ever in a race with them! There’s definitely something aspirational about it. I’ve no idea if there‘s a lot of people that did the same as me but I imagine it‘s a fair few. The esports side of things also gives the game a certain prestige which I would hope Sony value to enough degree that seeing the esports guys now being quite negative toward the game will motivate them to fix it.

My mistake, I only started playing in December so I didn’t realise there wasn’t a PS5 update to it.

But what percentage of players did the same?

I really doubt there’s enough people buying, for any reason, late in the lifecycle to make it worthwhile tbh. I bought GTS late too, to kill time in lockdown, and only paid a pittance for it. Six quid or something on Amazon. More fool me for paying full-price for 7.

It will be interesting to see whether PD sort out single player or online first, will tell us where the priorities are.

 

[Goshin2568]

But what percentage of players did the same?

I really doubt there’s enough people buying, for any reason, late in the lifecycle to make it worthwhile tbh. I bought GTS late too, to kill time in lockdown, and only paid a pittance for it. Six quid or something on Amazon. More fool me for paying full-price for 7.

It will be interesting to see whether PD sort out single player or online first, will tell us where the priorities are.

I mean that's easy to disprove that with actual sales numbers. According to Wikipedia (which has sources for all these)

Oct '17 - release
May '18 - 3.3 million copies
Dec '18 - 7.5 million copies
June '19 - 8 million copies
Feb '21 - 9.5 million copies


I'm not sure exactly what you personally consider "significant numbers", but that looks to me like a game that had very significant success late in it's life cycle.

 

[Nagaremono]

Not in "significant numbers" compared to launch of the game, but that's literally the point. Once you're past the launch window of a game, how on earth do you get sales? All the reviews and media coverage have already happened, all your posters at game stores have been taken down, you aren't running commercials or anything anymore, and all your single player playthroughs by content creators on youtube are over. What else is there to drive sales? Hoping someone walks by the disk at the store and picks it up?


It doesn't take a lot of math to realize that there aren't anywhere near enough sport mode players to account for the views that these content creators are getting. They are absolutely getting watched heavily by people who aren't actively playing the game, and every time that happens that a potential sale. That's a potential person who can show that to their friend, etc. And again it's hard to get that kind of exposure from any other source once you're past that initial launch window.

Sure, it's not going to sell as much as releasing a new game, but there's a limit to how often you can do that. It makes much more sense to use esports to try and keep making sales on your current game and keeping it relevant and in people's minds while you start on the new one. It's not like it takes PD's entire staff working full time to run stuff, not even close.




This is a great way to put it, and I think a ton of people shared that experience. I have sort of similar experience, I've been simracing since like 2008 (played older GT's casually on controller before that), but I took a break from it from like 2015-2018 because my life was crazy busy. But stumbling across GTS esports stuff on youtube is what motivated me to get back into it.

This would all make sense IF they’d managed to at least maintain the quality of experience in the next game. That they haven’t is the mystery.
Could be because of the cross gen thing you mentioned, or could be because they don’t really care because the numbers don’t justify the effort.

 

[Goshin2568]

This would all make sense IF they’d managed to at least maintain the quality of experience in the next game. That they haven’t is the mystery.
Could be because of the cross gen thing you mentioned, or could be because they don’t really care because the numbers don’t justify the effort.

But they didn't do that with single player either. So where exactly did they show that they care? If your theory holds up, what part of the game exactly can we deduce drives the most sales based on the effort that they've put into it?

 

[Nagaremono]

I mean that's easy to disprove that with actual sales numbers. According to Wikipedia (which has sources for all these)

Oct '17 - release
May '18 - 3.3 million copies
Dec '18 - 7.5 million copies
June '19 - 8 million copies
Feb '21 - 9.5 million copies


I'm not sure exactly what you personally consider "significant numbers", but that looks to me like a game that had very significant success late in it's life cycle.

Over seven million in first year, another two over following three years, and most of those later sales would’ve been heavily discounted (in fact, didn’t Sport get discounted v early?)

And I can almost guarantee Covid lockdown would’ve been helping drive sales towards the end, perhaps more so than esports YouTube stuff.

We’d only know if it was really a success in financial terms if we had access to Sony’s accounts.

 

[Scaff]

I mean that's easy to disprove that with actual sales numbers. According to Wikipedia (which has sources for all these)

Oct '17 - release
May '18 - 3.3 million copies
Dec '18 - 7.5 million copies
June '19 - 8 million copies
Feb '21 - 9.5 million copies


I'm not sure exactly what you personally consider "significant numbers", but that looks to me like a game that had very significant success late in it's life cycle.

The 'source' for that data is GT Planet itself, and you may want to actually read the article before using it to double down on those numbers. They are not 'actual' sales numbers at all, as for GTS Sony and PD have not released that information, they are estimated numbers based on player counts from a number of sources, and as such need to be treated with far more caution in regard to accuracy than you are doing.

To quote ourselves:
"500 words later, what have we learned? Well, we still don’t have an official statement on the sales figures of GT Sport. We found a rough relationship between sales figures and estimated, trophy-based player counts. There’s nothing solid here, but it seems a safe bet that Sport has likely already outsold GT6. How much further it has to go before the release of PlayStation 5 — and maybe a launch-title GT7 — is even less clear."

Gran Turismo Sport Has Sold an Estimated 8 Million Copies

A recent report from a hedge fund has suggested a new sales figure for Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo Sport. It's a big one too, with the copy total coming in at an estimated 8 million. That headline figure comes about midway through a massive 102-page document called "A Stronger Sony". In it,

www.gtplanet.net

 

[Nagaremono]

But they didn't do that with single player either. So where exactly did they show that they care? If your theory holds up, what part of the game exactly can we deduce drives the most sales based on the effort that they've put into it?

The problem with SP is lack of content. It all works, quite well imo, but they just haven’t provided enough.
Online though, incl lobbies, just seems to be broken, a worse experience than Sport. Could be the cross gen, or could be something else.

 

[FerrariF40]

With broken FFB, its a mess

GT Sport MP is also broken (disconnect error)

Sony, please fire Mr Kaz !

 

[Goshin2568]

The 'source' for that data is GT Planet itself, and you may want to actually read the article before using it to double down on those numbers. They are not 'actual' sales numbers at all, as for GTS Sony and PD have not released that information, they are estimated numbers based on player counts from a number of sources, and as such need to be treated with far more caution in regard to accuracy than you are doing.

To quote ourselves:
"500 words later, what have we learned? Well, we still don’t have an official statement on the sales figures of GT Sport. We found a rough relationship between sales figures and estimated, trophy-based player counts. There’s nothing solid here, but it seems a safe bet that Sport has likely already outsold GT6. How much further it has to go before the release of PlayStation 5 — and maybe a launch-title GT7 — is even less clear."

Gran Turismo Sport Has Sold an Estimated 8 Million Copies

A recent report from a hedge fund has suggested a new sales figure for Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo Sport. It's a big one too, with the copy total coming in at an estimated 8 million. That headline figure comes about midway through a massive 102-page document called "A Stronger Sony". In it,

www.gtplanet.net

Actual my source for that last number was this: https://octane.jp/articles/detail/6597/1/1/1


Which is an interview with Kaz by a Japanese outlet. This is a direct quote from the interview, translated to English (speaking about GT Sport): "As a result, we got 9.5 million users, but it didn't sell explosively from the beginning, but it took three years to gradually gain more understanding and more support."

 

[Nagaremono]

Actual my source for that last number was this: https://octane.jp/articles/detail/6597/1/1/1


Which is an interview with Kaz by a Japanese outlet. This is a direct quote from the interview, translated to English (speaking about GT Sport): "As a result, we got 9.5 million users, but it didn't sell explosively from the beginning, but it took three years to gradually gain more understanding and more support."

Thanks for that link, just had a read. It’s interesting he’s using ‘users’, not sales, even stressing it as the katakana-ized English word. This suggests he’s including anyone - including multiple accounts on the same console. So if five people in my family were to ‘use’ the game on my console it’d be five users in Kaz’s eyes. That’s not sales. Doesn’t distract much from the fact it’s a good-selling game, but it hasn’t sold 9.5 million copies. Anyway, we’re now way off topic, but thanks again for the link.

 

[Nagaremono]

... what part of the game exactly can we deduce drives the most sales based on the effort that they've put into it?

All that Scapes and livery crap by the look of it... 😁

 

[queleuleu]

Just let the community creates events like in Forza. Missions, championships, endurance races, time trials... so much potential but I guess Poly knows better than us.

 

[Scaff]

Actual my source for that last number was this: https://octane.jp/articles/detail/6597/1/1/1


Which is an interview with Kaz by a Japanese outlet. This is a direct quote from the interview, translated to English (speaking about GT Sport): "As a result, we got 9.5 million users, but it didn't sell explosively from the beginning, but it took three years to gradually gain more understanding and more support."

Which still would make it player count and not sales, as such the same fact applies, you can't translate player count directly to sales.

Also keep in mind that without the advantages of a lock-down driven surge in sim-racing or a Sport mode for youtubers to (as you claim) drive sales, another PS4 exclusive beat out GTS to a higher player count in the same 'four years from launch' period (10.5 million players vs 9.5 million).

 

[StIwY]

I put the game on sale, no more GT7 to me until they do a proper lobby system. If not, well, see you on GT8 on PS6.

 

[Nagaremono]

All that Scapes and livery crap by the look of it... 😁

I was joking when I wrote this, but having read the whole article you linked to (it goes on for five pages) for very worryingly large chunks of it they’re talking about Scapes and Pebble Beach. Not much about the main games at all...

Fawning lightweight ‘journalists’ like this need a slap. When Kaz is wittering on about ‘users’ the obvious next question should be: ‘So what are the actual sales?’ The fact they seem to treat him like Lady GaGa or Tom Cruise with the ultra-soft questioning makes it a farce. But at least it confirms they’re either shallow fanboy idiots or too scared of losing future access to push things. If it’s the latter it tells us something about Kaz and Sony too.

 

[Voodoovaj]

But what percentage of players did the same?

I really doubt there’s enough people buying, for any reason, late in the lifecycle to make it worthwhile tbh.

A quick google search shows between 8.5mil-10mil in sales. That didn't happen in year 1. They had less than 3mil the first year (again, depends on the source).

The point is, it sold well for its entire lifespan, and a crappy single player seems implausible as the reason, so it's either the welk done Sport Mode or lobbies.

I bought GTS late too, to kill time in lockdown, and only paid a pittance for it. Six quid or something on Amazon. More fool me for paying full-price for 7.

It will be interesting to see whether PD sort out single player or online first, will tell us where the priorities are.

Single player won't change because it hasn't changed in decades. This is what we will get, just more of it.

Fixing lobbies seems like the thing to do, but PD seems quite lost at the moment

 

[Samus]

Surely two reasons GTS sold so well for so long is that it was budget game priced for all but the first few months and it was basically the only option on PS4 for five years. It was the only GT game available. Same reason GT5 Prologue sold so well, there was no other option for so long.

Mind you, we still have no official numbers, only estimates.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

That wasn't cross gen. GT sport never got a PS5 update, it ran on ps5 in backcompat mode, essentially just emulating a ps4.

True, but what does ps5 code have to do with the server and online connection. GT Sport on ps5 gives me 5 bars, GT7 on ps5 gives me 3 bars, GT7 on ps4 gives me 5 bars. Does not compute. GTWS races are cross play and work fine, guess I can play one on ps4 and one on ps5 today to see if there's any difference.

Why are daily races on ps5 connecting to a different server, I don't get it.

Maybe they're experimenting with different net code. What I don't get on ps5 is that the race hangs at the start for minutes, then half the room gets thrown out and the race continues with 7 or 8 players... Or warm-up not starting because one person can't connect. Then after 4 minutes that person is chucked out and the race starts

On PS5 I get unexpected errors now and then during the race. I've never been thrown out on ps4, the only time was my modem actually crashing. But the server has never disconnected me on ps4.

I guess we're just a bunch of beta testers to PD

 

[BigSarj]

I consider this guy to be the ultimate casual style enjoyer of Gran Turismo. Only races road cars, has tons of fun fixing them up and racing against AI. I believe his views are likely a reflection of a significant portion of the audience.

 

[Pizzicato1985]

Listening to Moon Over The Castle saddens me now. I think I love this franchise a bit too much lol

And for the people who love this game, I envy you because I couldn't. I enjoy casually driving in this game but that's about it right now because of the state of it. I just don't have the same feeling as I was back then, this is more of a me problem though.

You're not at all alone in that feeling. Aside from the Tomahawk grind I don't know that I've played more than 5-6hr in the last month. Logged in today for the first time in a week to do some time trials, one of the only things I enjoy in the game right now, and the physics feel like they've been reset to pre-1.13. Exaggerated over-steer, low HP cars spinning their tires even with careful throttle, etc.

Thought it was just a FFB change so I switched over to controller and the same issues persist, so something is broken in the tire model/weight-transfer/etc yet again. So pretty much all of my tunes are garbage now, and cars I was previously setting personal track records with are now running 2-4sec slower per lap due to all of the ridiculous wheel-spin, lol. Can't even enjoy the casual hot-lapping at this point without re-tuning all my cars, and I just don't care enough to put in the effort at this point.

 

[GTboyz]

You're not at al alone in that feeling. Aside from the Tomahawk grind I don't know that I've played more the 5-6hr in the last month. Logged in today for the first time in a week to do some time trials, one of the only things I enjoy in the game right now, and the physics feel like they've been reset to pre-1.13. Exaggerated over-steer, low HP cars spinning their tires even with careful throttle, etc.

Thought it was just a FFB change so I switched over to controller and the same issues persist, so something is broken in the tire model/weight-transfer/etc yet again. So pretty much all of my tunes are garbage now, and cars I was previously setting personal track records with are now running 2-4sec slower per lap due to all of the ridiculous wheel-spin, lol. Can't even enjoy the casual hot-lapping at this point without re-tuning all my cars, and I just don't care enough to put in the effort at this point.

I don't feel like the physics has changed again though. I took some cars out yesterday and I still enjoy driving them.

 

[Pizzicato1985]

I don't feel like the physics has changed again though. I took some cars out yesterday and I still enjoy driving them.

Really? Maybe I'm just really, really rusty? You wouldn't think so from just a week-long break but I guess it's possible. Guess I should give it another shot with some cars I'm really familiar with, make sure I haven't enabled an assist by accident, etc.
Maybe this really is a ME issue, lol

 

[GTboyz]

Really? Maybe I'm just really, really rusty? You wouldn't think so from just a week-long break but I guess it's possible. Guess I should give it another shot with some cars I'm really familiar with, make sure I haven't enabled an assist by accident, etc.
Maybe this really is a ME issue, lol

okay what about this, can you list the cars that you drove that made you think the physics is changed ? I'll try them out and get back to you.